Dr. Strangemouth--or, How I Learned To Eavesdrop
And Fear The Bomb!(originally posted November 4th, 2003/Fred
Sez)

It's Election Day--what say we talk politics,
okay?

WAIT! WAIT! Get your itchy little index finger
away from that mouse--it's not what you think.
Yes, we most assuredly have our own political
biases here at Hembeck.com, true, but--well,
how shall I put this? Probably the overriding
one is that all--or, okay, to be fair, merely
most--of the folks who take up the political
profession as their life's work seem to spend
most of it beholden to the various moneyed
concerns who provided the necessary finances
to propel their candidacies in the first
place, while our dear friends, the politicians,
in turn try their doggone darnedest to convince
the public that--gee whiz!--it's actually
the little people's best interests that they
actually have at heart. Uh huh. Cynical?
Yup, you betcha, but hey, after all these
years, just try convincing me otherwise.
Partisan though I may be at times, that's
still the way I feel deep down inside even
about "my" guy, whoever he--or
she--happens to be at the time.

What kind of attitude would you expect, after
all, from some poor sap whose very first
exposure to national politics had him totally
convinced that if Richard Nixon DIDN'T win
the right to kick his loafers off in the
Oval Office, this future voter--and his entire
family--was assured a horrible, gruesome
death?!?...

Understand that we're hearkening back--WAY
back--to the initial run Eisenhower's Veep
made for the White House in the1960 Presidential
campaign. America had just cruised through
8 years of Republican rule thanks to the
former World War Two hero, General Dwight
D. Me? Well, I have absolutely no memories
of the old soldier's term in office, but
Mom and Dad Hembeck sure did. Hitting the
seven year mark several months before the
odometer on the decade turned over, I eventually
became superficially aware of the constant
campaigning by the two candidates for the
Big Job--Nixon, of course, and his Democratic
opponent, some guy named John F. Kennedy
(who was, for reasons I then couldn't fathom,
also called "Jack"...). The glitzy
looking campaign buttons--red, white, and
blue, of course--that we picked up at a mid-summer's
outing at a local fair did an inordinate
amount towards informing my nascent political
sensibilities. My parents, lifelong blue-collar
workers who nonetheless stayed firmly and
loyally on the Republican side of the aisle,
naturally scooped up a handful of pro-Nixon
paraphernalia, and I'll be darned if Little
Freddy himself wasn't tremendously impressed
by it! That man on the button seemed to have
such a nice, pleasant smile! Fact was, he
sorta reminded me of that OTHER man I liked,
y'know, the funny one with the similar looking
proboscis? Bob Hope, I think his name was...

Everything would've been just swell during
the final months of this hard fought political
contest in my insulated little corner of
the world if only it weren't for a chance
remark I accidentally overheard one of my
dad's friends offer up whilst they were engaging
in a discussion at our kitchen table one
fateful night. But before we get to the specifics
of the curious comment, allow me to tell
you a little bit about the speaker in question...

His name was Turbish. That's what everyone
called him--Turbish, just Turbish. Years
later, I finally found out that his first
name was "Rowland"--which may well
explain things. Anyway, he worked alongside
my dad in the kitchen of the Suffolk County
Infirmary, and was around my house, on and
off, pretty much my entire young life. Even
in the days after my dad passed on and I
had the family manse dropped unceremoniously
into my hands, Turbish would drop by unannounced.
He was a nice enough fella, I suppose, though,
frankly, he never really related to me as
a kid. Nonetheless, I always found him sort
of amusing. He spoke rapidly, always as if
he were out of breath, AND in a high pitched
voice! Picture, if you would, a cross between
Ed Norton (NOT the actor, young people, but
the patron saint of all sewer workers..,)
and Barney Fife, and THAT'D be a decent approximation
of good ol' Turbish! And for someone who
long ago had let go of the notion of employing
a first name, he had this amusing affectation
of referring to my dad as "Mr. Fred"!
He was prone to exaggeration, but on that
early fall day back in 1960, I was too young,
too naive--and dare I say it?--too STUPID
to know the difference between hyperbole
and reality. And friends, it cost me. The
price? My peace of mind (small as it may've
been...)

Y'see, there they sat, yammering on and on
about the upcoming election, and as usual,
Turbish was doing the vast majority of the
lip-flapping. Dad would occasionally interject
a comment or two, generally to lower the
exasperation level of the conversation, if
for no other reason. He well knew his colleague's
proclivities, and always had a bucketful
of salt at the ready. But to me, this fast
talking, shrill, bespeckled man was an adult,
and at that point in my social development,
I took everything an adult said as gospel.
Everything...

So imagine if you will my alarmed reaction
when I chanced to hear THIS prime bon mot:

"Mr. Fred, I'm telling you, if Kennedy
and the democrats get into the White House,
the Russians'll drop the bomb on us all by
Thanksgiving!!"

The bomb? That would be one of the atomic
variety, the likes of which we'd long practiced
avoiding by--good plan!--crawling down under
our desks at school. And the Russians? Communists,
and America's sworn enemy. We always seemed
to be on the brink of total annihilation
back in them good ol' days, so, by golly,
the high-pitched words of doom and devastation
emanating from Mr. Turbish's lips (kids still
addressed adults as "Mr." in those
long gone times, for those of you who came
in late... ) didn't sound all that absurd.
Not by a long shot.

Of course, they had no clue I'd been eavesdropping,
and being the sort of family we were--i.e.,
minimal communication, if that--I certainly
didn't ask for further clarification from
anyone. Nope, I just kept it to myself and
worried. And rooted desperately--DESPERATELY,
I tell ya!--for the man destined to one day
be known as "Tricky Dick" to win,
win, WIN! Barring that, I consoled myself
with the notion that, even with the awful
possibility of imminent destruction awaiting
us everyone just before the Thanksgiving
turkey could be carved, I WAS, at least,
guaranteed one last, glorious Halloween!...

Okay, so maybe I didn't lose any actual sleep
over the loose-lipped remark my shell-like
ears had chanced upon, but even forty years
later, I can still recall the overriding
sense of dread I carried with me for over
a month, as I internalized my own private
countdown to doomsday. I did share my concerns
with a close friend, who told me the whole
thing was just a bunch of hooey (kids still
said stuff like that in those days...). Of
course, HIS parents were Democrats, so how
could I truly trust anything they said? Weren't
they the problem, after all?...

No, the problem turned out to be my own gullibility.
I went out Trick or Treating that Halloween
and partied like it was, well, 1959, and
then I held my breath as the adults went
to the polls on the first Tuesday of November.
The election? It was a close one, mighty
close, but I think you all remember how it
turned out. Yup, Nixon lost. No turkey for
me--or anyone else in our soon-to-be-demolished
democracy. But...

Then Thanksgiving DID come after all! AND
it was followed in rapid succession by not
only Christmas, New Year's Eve and Day, the
JFK Inauguration, but perhaps MOST importantly
of all, my very own Birthday towards the
end of January 1961! Glory be--I'd made it
to age eight! Heck, we'd ALL made it!! Who'd
a thot? I thereby learned a great and valuable
lesson--political pundits, whether they're
smartly dressed on a Sunday morning talk
show or sitting around your kitchen in their
work clothes, the general rule of thumb is
that they don't actually know what they're
talking about, they just SOUND like they
do!!

Well, as fate would have it, I soon became
a big JFK fan--how could I not? Mort Weisinger
seemed to feature him in just about every
other issue of one of those fabulous Superman
Family comics I had only recently started
buying and collecting. And a few years later,
when things really DID go sour--a little
thing known as the Cuban Missile Crisis,
history buffs--I remained blissfully and
steadfastly unconcerned. After all, I'd already
been through this drill, hadn't I? You people
weren't gonna fool me TWICE! Little did I
realize just HOW close the sky actually came
to falling that particular time, but by then
I was fully convinced of Kennedy's extraordinary
governing abilities. Even my parents and
the excitable Mr. Rowland--G.O.P. lifers
all--gravitated toward the charismatic young
chief executive in those so-called days of
Camelot.

As for Mr. Dick, the man I so desperately
wished to be1960's winner--if only to assure
my further existence on this happy little
planet--well, come 1968, let's just say my
attitudes had, um, changed somewhat. At THAT
point it was my equally desperate wish was
for Nixon to LOSE, again so as to guarantee
my remaining existence on this not-always-so-happy
little planet for the then foreseeable future.